Media needs to start ignoring terrorist tapes

ABOUT THAT TAPE. I've got to disagree with my co-guestbloggers. Megan and Michael have both said ABC ought to run the tape it has of a hooded man mouthing al Qaeda commonplaces like "it's your turn to die" and "the streets will run with blood." That tape is a big nothing. Why should the newsmedia run al Qaeda's lame advertisements?

I think this is exactly right - - terrorists kidnap people because it gets them on TV. They do horrible things like behead people because it gets them attention. The way to stop them is to stop giving them attention. We need to take away their platform - - as soon as kidnapping an torturing westerners stops getting them on the nightly news, they'll stop.

Posted by jkhat at October 28, 2004 04:46 PM

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Comments

I can see both sides of this, I think Americans should see what kind of cowardly murderers we are dealing with. However this is what the terrorists want, publicity. I would rather show a smoking hole in the ground where a house used to be with a reporter standing there saying "this was the house of the terrorist that beheaded an innocent hostage"

excellent idea, Cowboy.. and then the reporter should switch to a new location showing another smoking crater.. "and here was the house of the mother of the same terrorist"... more location switches.. "and here was his uncle's house".. "and his barber's house".. "and we believe this guy owed him money".. you get the idea